Conventionally, there has been widely used a disk device which is installed with a magazine for housing disks and in which a disk taken out from the magazine is automatically played. Such a disk device is excellent in operability since the disks do not have to be inserted or ejected one by one every time when playing the disk.
However, it is required that the magazine attached or detached with respect to the device be strong enough to protect a plurality of disks held therein when taking out the magazine to the outside. Therefore, the walls of the magazine main body are thick, and as a result the sizes of the magazine itself and the entire device for installing the magazine are large. Moreover, in order to take out a tray or the like holding the disks inside the magazine, a guiding groove and a rail section are provided on an inner face of a side wall of the magazine. By forming such a groove and rail section, the thickness of the magazine side wall further increases and the gap between each adjacent disk holder becomes wide, whereby the height of the magazine increases and the size of the device for installing the magazine also increases.
In addition, in order to take out a disk housed in the magazine and play the disk, it is necessary to provide a sufficient space in the device, thus the size of the device increases. Particularly, as in an on-board disk device or the like, in the case where a disk needs to be housed in a size of 180×50 (mm), which is called “DIN size”, or a size of 180×100 (mm), which is called “double DIN size”, small-size disk devices are highly demanded.
In order to deal with such demand, a disk device is developed in which a magazine is split, and a drive unit for playing a disk is provided in a space formed by splitting the magazine, so that the disk can be played without taking out the disk from the magazine (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H11-232753, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H11-306637). Such disk device does not require a space for taking out and play a disk, thus the size of the entire device can be made small.
Furthermore, there is proposed a disk device, in which a detachable magazine is not used but disk housing sections such as trays capable of housing a plurality of disks therein are previously incorporated in the device in a stacked fashion, a disk inserted from a disk insertion opening is automatically housed in the tray, and the housed disk can be automatically ejected. In such a disk device, an opening, a mechanism and the like coping with the thickness of the magazine or attachment of the magazine are not required, thus a small-size device can be realized. Particularly, in the invention disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-195134, trays are provided vertically so that they can be split as with the abovementioned split magazine, and a drive unit is inserted into the split tray, whereby a disk can be played without taking it out. Accordingly, further reduction in size of the device can be achieved.
Incidentally, in such an on-board disk device as described above, the disk, which is inserted from the disk insertion opening, needs to be housed reliably in the disk housing section such as a tray, and the disk ejected from the disk housing section needs to be moved reliably to the disk insertion opening. However, for example, in the case of a small-size disk device in which a disk inserted from the disk insertion opening is caused to pass through between a turning table of a drive unit and a clamper and is then housed in the disk housing section, the pathway for movement of the disk between the disk insertion opening and the disk housing section does not necessarily form a straight line. In order to deal with such problem, the course of the disk can be changed by causing the disk to abut on a guide member or the like which is fixed in the disk device. However, if the member for holding the disk on the disk housing section side is comparatively firm, the disk needs to be pushed in against this member, thus change of the course of the disk may not be enough to deal with this case.
Furthermore, in the light of the resistance to vibration, in the above on-board disk device, the disk needs to be reliably housed and held in the tray which configures the disk housing section. Therefore, the tray is usually provided with a member for holding the disk, but when the trays move up and down in order to be split from one another, the disk may come out easily, thus the member in the tray may not be sufficient for holding the disk. At this moment, however, the disk held in the tray also moves due to the up-and-down movement of the tray, thus it is difficult to directly contact with the disk to prevent it from coming out of the tray.
Therefore, in the light of the resistance to vibration, the disk needs to be reliably housed and held in the tray which configures the disk housing section. On the other hand, when playing or conveying the disk, the disk needs to be released smoothly from the tray. In order to balance securing with releasing of the disk and configure a device having high resistance to vibration, it is necessary to provide not only a member for holding a disk on the tray but also a plurality of members around the tray to guide a disk to the tray and prevent the disk from coming out from the tray. However, since the space around the disk is narrow, it is not easy to dispose these members without interrupting the movement of the disk. Particularly, when configuring these members movably with respect to the disk so that the members contact with or separate from the disk when necessary, a drive mechanism for driving each member is required, thus a wider space is required and the members and the disk need to be synchronized with each other.